This present invention relates generally to disc jockey equipment and more specifically to video players for disc jockeys. Video players and DVD players have been known in the art for quite some time, however, no DVD player unit on the market exists that has been designed with the disc jockey in mind. Disc jockeys are expanding their repertoire from music alone to performances incorporating video clips. Therefore, there is a perceived need for a video player unit designed for the disc jockey.
Moreover, because disc jockeys must be able to arrange their performance on the fly, the video equipment must include two video sources to allow the disc jockey to play media form one unit for his audience while simultaneously load and ready for play media in a second video player unit. The video equipment must also have the ability to switch between the video signals of the two video players to facilitate a seamless performance for the audience. Also, two video sources are commonly mixed to generate unique visual effects.
Video sources are typically displayed using video players, such as DVD optical drives. However, these consumer video player units on the market currently lack important features for disc jockeys. First, the units are not built ruggedly enough for transportation between performances. Second, the units lack a second video player unit and often lack critical features to a disc jockey such as being able to set “cue” and “loop points” to allow replay of segments of video and audio. Third, the units lack the ability to immediately play media without any pause due to latency problems in the playback device. Fourth and most importantly, the consumer units lack the ability to synchronize the playback of dual sources of video to enable seamless transition from one video signal to the other.
Additionally, the video player unit must be easy to use for the disc jockey so he or she may concentrate on the content of the performance rather than on the operation of the equipment.